CEI misses the boat on the need for the National Weather Service

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) picks an odd time and a curious target for their latest missive pondering whether We Really Need a National Weather Service? Most of their arguments are not particularly persuasive and are easily dismissed by bringing a few background facts to the discussion. While it’s undeniable that the Obama administration has used the National Weather Service and “satellite funding” for political purposes, questioning the continued need for the NWS stretches the imagination.

The CEI article begins: (emphasis mine)

While Americans ought to prepare for the coming storm (Irene), federal dollars need not subsidize their preparations. Although it might sound outrageous, the truth is that the National Hurricane Center and its parent agency, the National Weather Service, are relics from America’s past that have actually outlived their usefulness.

Today the NWS justifies itself on public interest grounds. It issues severe weather advisories and hijacks local radio and television stations to get the message out. It presumes that citizens do not pay attention to the weather and so it must force important, perhaps lifesaving, information upon them. A few seconds’ thought reveals how silly this is. The weather might be the subject people care most about on a daily basis. There is a very successful private TV channel dedicated to it, 24 hours a day, as well as any number of phone and PC apps. Americans need not be forced to turn over part of their earnings to support weather reporting.

First, the CEI lowers itself when using the language of the left; hijack is not a term to be used for emergency warnings on the radio. Private radio and private television meteorologists cut-in all the time to their local stations for up-to-date weather information. If not in front of a TV or radio, they use their handheld devices. But where do these private outfits get their data? Where do these private outfits get their forecasts from? It’s the National Weather Service! In one way or another, almost the entire private weather forecasting industry is dependent upon the services provided by the government including NOAA, NWS, and even NASA with other data sharing arrangements with various world governments.

Indeed the Weather Underground, the Weather Channel, and Accuweather may simply reprint the forecast numbers of temperature and precipitation chances directly from the National Digital Forecast Database put out by the NWS. I know of many nationwide local television meteorologists that sometimes phone it in by forecasting MOS everyday. Regardless, the NWS forecasts or the output from the many different numerical weather prediction products is the first or second place that private forecasters go for guidance.

With the ongoing Hurricane Irene, let me discuss how these supposedly useless government funded forecasts are being used. First, in order to generate the best possible initial conditions for tropical storm track, and the entire weather model forecast, we need lots of data both in-situ (stations, balloons, aircraft), as well as satellite remote sensing. This is not only a nationwide effort but a truly global scale endeavor. If we do not know the initial conditions over China, our 5-day forecasts over the west coast would be considerably worse. Similarly, if the government funded reconnaissance flights from the military and NOAA did not fly through Irene or sample the environment around the storm, our track and intensity forecasts would be worse, a lot worse.

NOAA, the NWS, and the National Hurricane Center have coordinated for decades with universities and other government labs to develop the best possible data assimilation and mathematical modeling techniques. The national research and operations infrastructure developed, maintained, and advanced using government funding is truly something to be prideful about in America.

Suggesting that insurance companies or other private entities would have come up with this sort of infrastructure is fantastical and exhibits ignorance of the military-scale coordination necessary for the entire system to work. Since the private corporations are taxpayers as well, they are justified in making use of the government subsidized data network including satellites and supercomputer weather forecasts — and adding value for their particular sector of the economy. While food stamps and unemployment checks may be the best way for the Obama administration to stimulate the economy, I’d argue that providing the best forecasts, technology, and expertise in weather is one of the best fiscal multipliers out there aside from the threat of space alien attacks.

55 thoughts on “CEI misses the boat on the need for the National Weather Service”

The National Weather Service like ALL government agencies have bloated pensions and health benefits that require an ever increasing budget. CEI can go after that — but the NWS should be way, way down the list for potential targets of government waste. The fearomongering by the President and the NOAA administrator is disgusting but typical. They are politicians or political appointees scared for their jobs by a pitchfork wielding electorate.

CEI lays an egg on this one and should retract their article lest someone takes it seriously.

LOL and another Obama epic fail, he took over the helm of what basically turned into a bad rainstorm for a nice picture and yet another sky is falling emergency pass this now moment. And the line “I stand behind the governors” from his presser is appropriate.. when has he ever successfully taken the lead on anything

Bloated pension and health benefits?! I just barely was able to get some cheap dental insurance for cleanings and emergency care. Prior to this I had none, zero, nada on my bloated NWS insurance plan. My pension is simple. They contribute to my retirement, which I suspect to not receive the way things are going, and allow me to invest in the stock market. Yippee. I have lost years off my retirement in the last few months. I love my job and am proud of my agency. But let’s be truthful about bloating.

This is one of the BASIC services that any government should provide, and it performs remarkably well.
Its forecasts aren’t always better than the commercial services, but they’re available FREE, and in great detail for those who know how to read the details.

I’d much rather get rid of the military, which has not served American interests or protected American lives since 1945. In theory it should, but since we haven’t used it correctly for 66 years, better to abandon it.

I fear your missive may fall on some deaf ears.
It is clear there is a body of political opinion that regards it as an ideological absolute that just about ANY government funding of public projects or services is a VERY BAD THING.
About the only exceptions they seem to make are the military and abstinence only sex-ed programs.

Those with a dogmatic opposition to any government funded project would NOT share your view that “The national research and operations infrastructure developed, maintained, and advanced using government funding is truly something to be prideful about…” as the first post hints there is an absolute dogma against the bloat and waste of ALL government organizations.
If it is used so widely by private media, cable tv, radio and papers, then it clearly has a product of value and I am sure some voices within the CEI would argue that it SHOULD be a competitive enterprise. They could point to the many other National weather services that have been privatized – at least to some extent – and now charge for their weather data products. Otherwise those that derive the most benefit from the NWS are being subsidized by the general taxpayer.

Charging for its product would expose the NWS to the efficiency rigors of the free market where other private sources of data could compete.

And if weather reports were constrained by the cost rather than free there might be rather less of all that reporting of extreme snowfalls, record rainfall/flooding, persistent drought, exceptional tornado events and major storms.
Reducing all the awkward questions about AGW magnifying the severity of recent weather….

It is an interesting question: if the government did not do weather, who would do the weather and how good a job would they do? What are the pros and cons of the government doing the weather? Is there any intrinsic reason why government should do the weather science rather than private companies? Maue and Watts may not have the proper perspective to be sufficiently open minded about this question. The reality is that most the politicized scientists who have perpetrated the scam of catastrophic human caused global warming work for the government or are funded by the government. Our taxes have enabled these hacktivists to politicize science.

The cost, size, and power of the federal government needs to be radically reduced asap. If space exploration can be transferred over to private enterprise, why not weather? Maybe it is a good idea, maybe it isn’t, but it is healthy to have an open, honest, and thorough discussion of the pros and cons of having the government do our weather science.

As the producers of raw materials, the NWS does not have the benefit of being able to look at other entities’ forecasts and data when generating its forecasts. We have to do it all from scratch. Especially in the west, where systems move in off the data void of the Pacific. In the east, at least things have move across three time zones and been observed and recorded. But I’m not bitter. ;-)

Here in northern Utah the University Climate Center is run by those supporting human caused climate disruption. There is a problem when those attracted to the weather service bring their bias withthem.

And, when it comes to saving a penny, this NWS item falls in the same category as “Corporate Jets”. Want to save some real money? Go back to Pre-1929 Government Entitlement Programs and work your way forward to the present. We made a lot of stupid laws since the Great Depression began with the Stock Market Crash of ’29. Any attempts to patch and mend with band-aides is going to accomplish absolutely nothing whatsoever. Can anything like that be done in this day and age? Sure it can. We have got lots of computers and more PhD’s than you can shake a stick at. Besides that, most of the people in this country are just as smart as their parents and grandparents were.

Will it be done? No! Not with this Commiecrat Administration and anyone over 60yoa in Congress who’s been there for more than 2 years. Want to fix the real problem? Elect a new President and a Brand New Senate and House with young American minds who don’t give a tinker’s damn about School Lunch Programs, Old Folks who don’t need Social Security, a National Healthcare Program, saving the Planet for Gore’s Global Warming insanity, EPA rules for making everything in some other country, a complicated worthless taxcode, etc., etc., etc.

I know, life’s a beach! Pick up a rake, there’s a lot of mess to clean up.

All private weather companies have so many failures not catalogued because they are a private(not public) industry it is not even slightly humorous. This contributor to Faux News is embarassingly underinformed as to the nature and inaccuracy of many private weather services, their inability to play well together, suing each other at a moment’s notice, and putting profit well before lives. This article is sad, and dangerous.

3 examples of where the NWS is useful…and there are more if you dig around:
1. A commercial airliner takes off from Houston and flies to Chicago, both airports use different private weather forecasting companies. Both companies agree there will be thunderstorms, but the one in Houston feels they wont be so close as to stop flights while the one in Chicago does. As the flight passes into southern Illinois, the runways are closed. Having one entity put out the forecasts for both helps.
2. Small Town Airport X has weather sensing equipment for the purposes of take offs and landings. Airport X cannot afford this equipment on the equipment on their own and it is a safety hazard to not have the information it provides. NWS currently pays for and maintains many of these systems.
3. Speaking of equipment and instruments…would we have to start paying to use the radar data that covers nearly the entire US since it too would have to go to a private company? To try and go to just the radars that the big city TV stations have would leave enormous gaps and leave many people in harms way.

It might be interesting to ask someone like Ron Paul, the consummate libertarian, for his take on this. I guess it really boils down to each person’s idea of the necessary functions of a federal government (personally I feel the only function of government is to protect private property and keep us from killing each other when we’re having fun). Once that has been established and if a national weather service is one of those functions the battle then becomes one of efficiency

I have dealt with and/or work with only a few of federal agencies, but from my limited experience, with few exceptions the overall efficiency of those agencies has been pretty pathetic when compared to the private businesses I have worked with or for. While we are lucky to have quite a few dedicate public servants that are proud of their work and that do excellent work, the system is just not set up to foster efficiency. The compensation of both the workers and management is almost totally disconnected from any benefit they provide to their employers (i.e., us, the taxpayers) and, in the case of management, the compensation is more a function of the size of their budget and the number of people they manage. So, why should they be concerned about efficiency when it is not to their benefit?

Personally I think the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is barking up the wrong tree. While they are no longer a large portion of the electorate, there is not a farmer or fisherman out there that doesn’t rely heavily on the National Weather Service and would agree with its elimination . Rather than looking for agencies to disband (i.e., the employees are never fired, just shuffled off to other places within the government), they should return to the function implied in their name and work to make the government competitive.

Is everyone here aware that the internet began as a government project and that this enormous, job-creating, free enterprise-maxing medium would not exist where it not for the initial government funding? Without the National Weather Service, there would be no private weather services. They rely almost entirely on the NWS for the data which they convert into paid services.

Ref – Jerry Bowles says:
August 28, 2011 at 9:25 am
“Is everyone here aware that the internet began as a government project and that this enormous, job-creating, free enterprise-maxing medium would not exist where it not for the initial government funding?…”

Yhea! Me and about 13.3million other guys & gals invented, perfected, and capitalized on it. Then, funniest thing, about 24 light years later this bozo, who went to college with some real famous actor (Tommy Lee Jones) shows up and tells everyone “he” invented it. I think he’s somewhere in the public sector selling wrinkle-cream, health elixers, and linament oils for horses to little old ladies, and propositioning hotel maids and poor girls no older than his own daughter. Forget his name; I think it rimes with something that smells terrible, isn’t very pretty, and makes most people puke. I think his wife finally divorced him, and his dad got rich in politics.

What was his name? Bore? Core? Door? Fore? Hore?… Oh well, just like him, not important. He’s a flake.

While it makes sense to most to keep the NWS, I would think private enterprise like the weather channel could replace it rather easily. They already have their own experts and make their own predictions.

“NOAA, the NWS, and the National Hurricane Center have coordinated for decades with universities and other government labs to develop the best possible data assimilation and mathematical modeling techniques. The national research and operations infrastructure developed, maintained, and advanced using government funding is truly something to be prideful about in America.”

Your position might prove to be correct ultimately. However, you do yourself and your position no service by presenting a series of fallacious arguments. In the statement quoted above, you assume what you want to prove, namely, that the services provided by NOAA and the rest are effective. You are Arguing in a Circle or, as it was once known before the broadcast babes changed its meaning, Begging the Question. I take particular offense at your statement that they have “develop[ed] the best possible data assimilation and mathematical modeling techniques.” I think the standards you are applying would be approved by Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Jim Hansen, and Kevin Trenberth. In my mind, that means the standards are worthless. It is ironic that you state this argument now during a major fail on Irene by NOAA and everybody.

I do not have time to engage in extended argument over this matter. But if I did I wouldn’t. I would not because it would end up with you asserting some tired platitude such as “It is better to be safe than sorry.” No, it is better to be safe and to not spend the money.

I would have thought by now that everyone who contributes articles to WUWT, the sceptical site par excellence, had learned that you must contribute at least one substantial argument that is not obviously fallacious. You cannot argue that NOAA and similar folks are effective in their output by asserting that they are successful in their output. You have to prove something about their effectiveness. To do that here, you will have to adopt standards for data assimilation and modeling techniques that are seriously higher than those used by NOAA and others in defense of their awesome wonderfulness. You have work to do.

[RyanMaue: with all due respect, you are mixing Climate Change scientists (Mann, Hansen, and Trenberth) with the National Weather Service who have NOTHING to do with the NWS. In other words, you have no idea what you are talking about. Why the blinkered vitriol towards the NWS? Your position like CEI is ignorant.]

You want a National Weather Service?? Fine, organize one on a subscription or contribution basis privately. I am amazed that people STILL can’t see the problems with the Federal Government trying to run anything with the problems already shown to be chronic in ALL areas in which they are involved.

Let me say again. The private weather services rely almost exclusively upon information provided to them free by the NWS and other national weather services around the globe. Not even Apple or Google could afford to build such an infrastructure from scratch. You obviously did not read the post upon which you are commenting or you would know that.

I could approve of NWS, NOAA, and the others if they would systematically incorporate a sceptical critique of all their work as it is published. I will be happy to perform that necessary function for them. After the Irene fiasco, every ear at those “agencies” would be burning with fire and some heads would roll.

Agreed. There are plenty of things to cut out of the federal government, but the NWS is a long-standing public good. Increasing the flow of information is one of the most important things that the government can do easily and successfully.

If there is any part of government conservatives should use hurricanes to highlight getting rid of, it should be the incompetent 30-year-old FEMA, not an old relatively cheap service that has been around since long before our government got into financial trouble. Businesses and non-profits do a much better job than the government at identifying people’s needs in disasters and fulfilling them, but they don’t do a better job at setting up thousands of river gauges, ocean buoys, and radar systems, gathering data from all these sources for decades and making the data available to the public for free. The government’s problem now is that it tries to do things for specific people that cost more money for every new person and disrupts their incentives to take care of that themselves. The National Weather Service is not one of those things. Its information is a public good whose costs do not increase relative to the population but whose value actually increases as the information helps more and more people make better decisions. It is not a trivial distinction.

I’d much rather get rid of the military, which has not served American interests or protected American lives since 1945. In theory it should, but since we haven’t used it correctly for 66 years, better to abandon it.

Too true. The military has especially protected no American lives since 9/11, having it just makes us a juicy target for more terrorist attacks. As clearly seen by the lack of terrorist attacks since then, the military just isn’t required. Indeed, as you postulate, the military really hasn’t done anything like they should since WWII. If we had abandoned having a standing military right after WWII, the Soviets would have seen us as a pacifist non-threat, left us completely alone, and merely concentrated on taking over all of Europe and Asia (to start), which in no way would have been against American interests as the Soviets wouldn’t have been bothering us.

It seems that people have no clue just what the National Weather Service does — and how forecasts are prepared, what data goes into them, and the expertise required to produce a product that isn’t crap.

Blindly linking the NWS with climate change is ignorant. I’d wager that the vast majority of forecasters at WFO’s around the country give two-sh*ts about climate change, and most are like television personalities that are disgusted with the leftist political hype surrounding global warming.

Target your vitriol at the purveyors of this disaster pornography, but make sure you have your facts right.

The weather. It’s a socialist plot of monstrous proportions. Did you ever notice how it affects everyone equally? What commie came up with that, anyway? The weather needs to be educated about the free markets. The weather should subject itself to the same incentives as other enterprises in a free market, and permit people to bid on its movements. People with means should be able to pay to escape tornados and hurricanes. The poor? Who cares?

“While it’s undeniable that the Obama administration has used the National Weather Service and “satellite funding” for political purposes, questioning the continued need for the NWS stretches the imagination.”

How specifically has the Obama administration used the NWS for political purposes?

From an economics perspective the NWS products comprise a group of quasi-public goods. These goods are non-rival, which means that consumption of them does not impact their further consumption. They also might be non-excludable by their purpose of promoting the general welfare. Wide and free distribution of them promotes the general welfare. These goods unlike other government services or goods are clearly constitutional and are a legitimate function of government.

The question CEI raises is the analysis of data provided by the NWS. CEI simply points out that this analysis has a higher error rate than privately provided analysis. Perhaps NWS should simply maintain its sensors both ground and satellite and forget analysis. This site has clearly found problems with their sensor network. And it has shown that its readers are more perspicacious than NWS’s own analysis and public statements.

I agree with Dr. Maue. And I would take the idea a step further, if nobody objects to my stating the obvious.

Organizations like CEI and Cato perform a valuable public service whenever they point out waste, fraud, and abuse on the part of governments at all levels. This is especially true in the case of the CAGW scare. However the unwarranted attack on the NWS underscores a larger issue.

The CEI is rightfully skeptical about the CAGW myth, and about the intrusions on the part of Big Government that that multifaceted belief system implies. As the NWS controversy has demonstrated, the skepticism does not stem from superior analytical abilities. By and large, the CEI people are Smithian fundamentalists. By virtue of that fact, they’re more receptive to logical and not-so-logical arguments that emphasize the laissez-faire approach.

Joshua Science says:
August 28, 2011 at 1:16 pm
If there is any part of government conservatives should use hurricanes to highlight getting rid of, it should be the incompetent 30-year-old FEMA, not an old relatively cheap service that has been around since long before our government got into financial trouble.

HA HA HA – dude – your argument is not worth a continental. (google that expression, eh)
this gov’t has NEVER been out of trouble.

“Indeed the Weather Underground, the Weather Channel, and Accuweather may simply reprint the forecast numbers of temperature and precipitation chances directly from the National Digital Forecast Database put out by the NWS.”

While I cannot speak for the others, this statement, as it pertains to AccuWeather is false. Our forecasts are NOT “reprints” of the National Weather Service’s.

Most of the arguments in favor of a NWS are rather threadbare. And just because the NWS
currently does things that no one else does is no evidence that someone else couldn’t do it and do it better and at less costs. And even if there are some operations that some claim can only be done by the govt (such as hurricane fly thrus), that is no reason for supporting an entire NWS . Certainly the private websites out there providing NWS information are far superior to the primitive web technology available from the hurricane service, which publishes 8 1/2 by 11 page formats in an unsophisticated and clumsy interface.

TO Kent Beuchert: ” Certainly the private websites out there providing NWS information are far superior to the primitive web technology available from the hurricane service, which publishes 8 1/2 by 11 page formats in an unsophisticated and clumsy interface.”

Either you are ignorant or just stupid. You obviously have no clue regarding the science and technology of meteorology, and how those services delivered by the private sector, and the public (including the military). Weather Underground is a pretender. AccuWeather and the Weather Channel would not exist because they do not have the capability or capacity to do what the NWS does. Even Joel Meyers will finally admit after all these years that he makes money because of the heavy lift the NWS does. Ask the Weather Channel. They are upfront about the fact that they exist and make money because of the NWS.

As for the clumsy interface…write a letter to your Congressman, Kent. It’s the inane, and arcane rules that CONGRESS enacts that keep the NWS from moving as rapidly as those inside the NWS want to move.

It’s pretty obvious you have never visited a NWS office, and don’t know a NWS employee, and are certainly clueless about operational meteorology. Sheesh.

one question here, and if you’re an attorney out there please clear something up for me. if the NWS were to be no more, would that mean that most clauses that came with it in terms of shielding forecasters from lawsuits go away? and if so, how much would malpractice/liability insurance run for a weather forecaster? i figure somewhere near say, the same as a doctor in a high-risk specialty? or more? and could salaries for forecasting meteorologists ever really get to those levels to pay for such insurance, given the current salary structure?

Wow. There are tough feelings on both sides. I would like to observe that most of the negative comments about the NWS appear to out of ignorance on how things really work. Saying that the private companies could do this all without the NWS is like saying, “Why do we need guns? Just let the bullets do the work!” What are you gonna do? Throw the bullets at the target? The gun and the bullets work together well. When the bullets start bitching about the gun not being able to keep up, it’s perhaps the bullets that have an inferiority complex. Similarly, a gun without bullets is a club and not much else.

Please don’t let the contempt for those who aid and abet climate change propaganda confuse you about the NWS. Weather guys are the least likely to support the hysteria. They’ve seen it all before. I read the discussions almost daily and never ever have any hint of a whiff that anything going on with the weather is due to global warming.

While it makes sense to most to keep the NWS, I would think private enterprise like the weather channel could replace it rather easily. They already have their own experts and make their own predictions.”

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Are you serious? TWC predictions for my area are too broad and often way off the mark. The local NWS guys get it more right because they KNOW the area. These guys don’t just sit in D.C. and gaze at their navels. NWS offices exist all around the country and analyze the data with input from their own knowledge and experience of the specific geographical area they work in.

If you’re lucky, and many areas are not, you have local weather people working for local TV affiliates with even more fine-tuned weather experience in the local area. But they’re still dependent on data collected by the NWS.

Yhea! Me and about 13.3million other guys & gals invented, perfected, and c
————
You must be confused. The legistlative framework for the Internet was sponsored by Al Gore when he was a young senator. You really should take political propaganda with a pinch of salt.

The Internet in turn was an extension of aarpanet so it’s technical underpinnings are even older.
————
As a Senator, Gore began to craft the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 (commonly referred to as “The Gore Bill”) after hearing the 1988 report Toward a National Research Network submitted to Congress by a group chaired by UCLA professor of computer science, Leonard Kleinrock, one of the central creators of the ARPANET (the ARPANET, first deployed by Kleinrock and others in 1969, is the predecessor of the Internet).[53][54][55] The bill was passed on December 9, 1991 and led to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) which Gore referred to as the “information superhighway.”[56]

On April 27, I need the info that radar data provided in order to not get killed during that tornado outbreak. I also had a live person at the local NWS to take the several reports I called in. No media outlet could have done that. As a spotter I used to call some media but knew the best place to relay reports was to the guys and gals in our local office. BTW, these folks do get judged on how they handle the big events. The bosses over the local office as always looking to see how things could have been done better.
As for the Weather Channel, they can only handle some of the reports once a major event is unfolding. I do like the work they do but they are limited. Now due to raising prices our family had to make the choice of no TV cable to cut money going out . The reports off the weather radio are free as are the local tv coverage of HD airwaves. This is getting old reading the these attacks on one of the smaller gov’t organizations.

It is very nice to see many of my fellow conservatives stand up for the National Weather Service. I am originally from south Louisiana, a very conservative part of the country for those who may not be familiar, and have never in my entire life heard one person say one negative thing about the National Weather Service, in fact, most are very grateful for the service that is provided. The whole notion that conservatives are “anti-science” is completely bogus and is simply more demagoguing by the left. And why aren’t certain liberals (not all of them of course) considered “anti-science” for wanting to distort facts for their own political gain?

Thank you, Dr. Maue, for posting this wonderfully written blog that shows that there are many, many conservatives out there that give full support to the National Weather Service.